ALESSANDRA AMBROSIO has been voted “The Sexiest Woman Alive” and regularly struts her stuff as a Victoria’s Secret Angel. Yet the woman with the world’s most envied body comes from a small town in Brazil, is a mother of two, and admits to struggling with baby weight. CELIA WALDEN talks to the world’s most surprising supermodel.

Alessandra Ambrosio is showing me her ears. They are delicate and perfectly formed like the rest of her, but after a botched operation when she was 11 years old, the Brazilian supermodel keeps them hidden. “I always knew I wanted to be a model so I decided to have my ears pinned back, because they stuck out a bit. I found this doctor in my hometown [of Erechim] in Brazil who had only done it once before, so I was a guinea pig,” Ambrosio says, laughing. “The first few nights, it felt like someone had cut off my ears. For a year, I had to go back for mini-surgeries. Doctors say they can fix them, but cosmetic surgery freaks me out now.”

Ears aside, the 32-year-old will just have to coast through life with the looks God – or some sadist in the sky intent on condemning womankind to a state of eternal jealousy – gave her. Today, sitting in a Santa Monica bar, her willowy 5ft 9in frame in a vintage plaid shirt (her fiancé’s, Californian businessman Jamie Mazur), black leggings and Saint Laurent biker boots, it is hard not to look at the woman opposite me without recalling the words Chelsea Handler uttered when she had Ambrosio on her show: “Where did those kids come out of?” Because one of the few things that we know about this most secret of Victoria’s Secret Angels is that she is a mother of two – Anja, 5 and Noah, 19 months – and walked the runway three months after having her first child. “I knew that I had the show to do after having [Anja] – and actually I was expecting my body to go back quicker,” Ambrosio says, sipping a green tea. “People kept telling me that I would bounce back straight away, but a week after giving birth I still had that balloon belly. It was the first time in my life that I had to diet. Before I had my kids, if I gained one or two pounds I would just eat salad and it would be OK. But when I got pregnant with Anja I really went for it with food. I gained 60lbs, so I had a lot to lose.” She started seeing a trainer six times a week and signed up to a calorie-controlled meal-delivery service. “It was 1,500 calories a day as I was breastfeeding. I [was] so excited one day because it said that I was going to have a hamburger. I was at a barbecue and when I opened up the burger box, the bun was as thick as a piece of lettuce. My friends laughed their heads off...”

Now that she is back to her target weight, Ambrosio is less strict. She had a real burger for dinner last night, she tells me, and her fiancé has got her into yoga, which she does three times a week, along with Pilates. In LA – where she moved in 2008 when she and Mazur got engaged – she and Mazur surf, play volleyball and throw barbecues in their
Santa Monica home. Their wholesome, idyllic life – captured daily by the paparazzi – has become part of Ambrosio’s brand, something she has been shrewd enough to capitalize on through Twitter and Instagram. Next year she is launching Alé by Alessandra, a lifestyle brand that will include clothing, fragrance and accessories. “Hopefully one day I’ll have an empire,” she smiles. “When I started modeling at 15, after modeling school, I thought it would all be over for me by 19, but that’s just not the case anymore.”

Ambrosio was already a successful catwalk model – and the face of Calvin Klein in 1999 and Guess? in 2000 – before Victoria’s Secret made her an ‘Angel’ at 22. Were her Catholic parents shocked to see their daughter parading down the runway in underwear? “No,” she laughs. “Brazil is a very sexual country. Women are always showing their boobs and butts on the beach. And I’ve been careful: even if I did Playboy, I wouldn’t want to do something that looks vulgar.” Is that something she is considering? “I would have to discuss it with my family and make sure it was artistic. Cindy Crawford and Stephanie Seymour did it and they made me want to model. It’s funny how casual you become about [your breasts] after children. I mean, you breast-feed in front of your parents… Still, after two kids, they’re not the same. I’m afraid of having anything done, though: there’s too much of that in LA.”

Mazur, Ambrosio tells me, is as unimpressed by artificial women as he is by the world of celebrity. What is the breakfast-table talk like when your fiancée is voted one of the “sexiest women alive”, as Ambrosio regularly is? “Oh, he doesn’t care,” she shrugs. “Sometimes he gets annoyed by the way people treat me and the celebrity thing.”

Does she ever feel objectified by the media – and men? “I feel like my job is to be this beautiful girl who sells clothes. And there are good things about this career: you’re inspiring people, making them feel good about themselves. Clothes are something that elevate every woman’s mood.” Does she consider herself a feminist? “A little bit,” she says. “I come from a family where women are very strong. They rule the house and I’m the same.” That desire never to be subservient, along with a “jealous nature”, is why she never joined those models who date A-listers. “I can be quite jealous, and when I see models with famous men, I think, that [is not] for me. I want a man to myself. There’s already competition for a normal guy; I’m not up to fighting other women off.”

Judging by the envious/libidinous gazes of every woman and man as she saunters off, however, I am fairly certain that Alessandra Ambrosio could hold her own.

I'm usually very impressed with The Edit when it comes to styling and photography, but this is kinda lackluster to me. I know they picked Ale because she is THE EMBODIMENT of sun and vacation etc. but I wish they had experimented a bit further with her. That being said, I LOVE the last shot.

When i saw that at first, I don't like this look, but now I think its not bad. Very brazilian. Not only the look, but that pose and glamour. Can imagine in her place Gisele, Izabel, Isabeli
Maybe I am wrong and brazilian disagree with me.